Jetty Island - Sunset, Whales and a Friendly Harbor Seal

Sunday evening around 5pm Ben and I put the kayaks in the water at the Everett Marina and planned to circle Jetty Island before sunset. At near 60 degrees a clear sky and no wind the weather was spectacular to get out.

First we headed towards the north end of Jetty Island where the Snohomish River meets the sound. We passed through the area which is used for log storage though today there were no logs around only hundreds of lonely pilings dotting the area. Also near the mouth of the river they have grounded probably a dozen old ocean going wood barges. It was really cool to get up close to these and see the workmanship that was involved in putting the rotting hulks together. The tide was high enough that we were actually able to paddle into one of them. Some of the wood beams on these barges were massive - you would probably not be able to acquire wood this big anymore - and if you were able to find one it would likely have 40 chanting hippies chained to it as you cut it down!

After exploring the barges we headed back out into the channel towards Hat Island. Since the wind and current were almost nonexistent at that time even I had no trouble keeping a straight line. Once we got out to the channel marker roughly half way to the island we circled back around towards the south end of Jetty.

Nearly halfway back we came near a small fishing boat (I guess you'd call it that, to me it looked more like a large bathtub with an outboard motor strapped to it). The folks on board were busy dropping several crab pots. As the boat got near us the lady on board asked where we were heading from and Ben told her we came out from the marina. She then said "I can't believe you guys are out here with the whales." By the way she was talking I was thinking the crab lady may have had a few too many! Not less the 20 seconds later a gray whale surfaced a couple hundred yards just north of us it was amazing and all I could think was "WOW! - maybe she not as drunk as she sounds???" Well we worked our way around their boat (at a safe distance) and continued towards Jetty.

On the way back we stopped several times to watch the whales playing in the warm shallow waters near us. We did our best to keep our distance. There were a few minutes there where we were wondering if we were going to get to meet them on a more personal level as one, maybe two, of them appeared to be heading our direction before turning north and passing in front of us. These guys are huge they looked like Greyhound buses that could swim! In the 20-30 minutes they were out there with us I counted at least four we were able to identify individually but my guess is there were more.

After the whales moved north past us we continued around the south end of the Jetty where I was surprisingly greeted by a very curious harbor seal. Man those guys are cool - very friendly. As Ben put it "they're like a dog.....but they swim" and that's really the best way to describe him. As a matter of fact he was so friendly he followed us all the way from the end of the jetty past the waterfront restaurants through the middle of the marina and almost all the way back to the boat launch. One couple walking near the restaurant actually asked if he was ours!

Wow what an evening we planned on paddling 4 miles and ended up going closer to 9. We planned on it not being a very adventurous trip and it ended up being one if the most exciting times I've had a quite a while.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures on the whales being that it was only my second time on open water in a sea kayak I didn't want to take my chances that close to them!

Stats:

Miles Logged: 9

One Highway & Three Dead Ends

This morning we decided to take off and explore the Mountain Loop Highway (WA. SR 530). Diane found a couple hikes up there she wanted to check out. I knew it was a little early in the season to attempt to make the entire loop over Barlow Pass due to the snow and since the road on the north side of the pass is not paved (roughly 25 miles of mostly smooth dirt, mud and gravel) I decided to start from the north end of the loop outside the town of Darrington with the hope we could make it to the trail head before getting stopped by snow.

We drove through Darrington in the rain with more dark clouds heading our way. I was beginning to think this could be a messy day. Less than 10 minutes out of Darrington, and inside the National Forest, the pavement gave way to a wet gravel road. We followed the "highway" another 16 miles and turned off on FS49 to reach the trail head about a mile up the hill. The walk to North Fork Sauk Waterfall. This hike to the waterfall was only 5 minutes from the car but defiantly worth all the effort. The falls here are said to be only 58' high but the water rushes off a 90 degree drop and the sound of the canyon walls are worth the walk by itself - here is better picture a pro took: http://www.waterfallsnorthwest.com/nws/image.php?st=WA&num=277&p=0

After taking a few pictures we climbed back up to the truck and headed up FS49 to reach our next hike. After less than a mile I had to turn around due to the road still being covered with fresh snow - I thought about attempting to push on but then thought I have nobody to pull me out if I manage to do something "spectacular" and it will be a long cold night out here with no sleeping bags. Looks like a dead end!

Once back on the main road we continued south towards the pass but again at the elevation we were only made it a couple more miles before we were confronted with with snow. This snow looked much more manageable as it looked to have been driven through be several others. That's when I looked up the road and realized 30 yards ahead the road was completely blocked by a large tree that had fallen - this explains why there were so many tire tracks in the snow...they had to drive through it twice! Dead end #2!

After we turned around again we pulled off the road next to a creek and parked under a giant cedar tree to have some lunch. The tree blocked pretty much all the rain, and now some snow, so we got out of the car and tailgated it for a few minutes. After lunch Lily and Maggie played in the snow then we headed back down the mountain.

On the way down the road was getting pretty muddy from the rain but it wasn't really enough to slow down for. Near the end of the highway we turned off on to FS23 that runs north along the river. This road was a pretty messy. The road was covered with small tree limbs and branches and the parts the were not covered were mud - it look as if nobody had driven on this road recently. About 1.5-2 miles down the road I found out why....there was no more road! The river, which was currently flowing 30 feet below the road, had completely washed out the side of the mountain taking the road with it. Dead end #3!

After coming to our third dead end in three hours we decided to call it done.

Change of plans II…white water to water falls

Due the cancellation of my rafting plans this weekend (I'm still bitter!) I filled Saturday with a kayak trip but still had Sunday free. Diane wanted to get out so we diceided to take a hike up to Wallace Falls. I though this would be worth the hike since most of the low level snow is now melting (though not enough to let me go boating!) it should be feeding the water falls nicely.

We took off really early since we knew the weather was supposed to be really nice and this is a very popular trail when the sun comes out and it was already t-shirt weather by 9am. When we arrived at the trailhead there were only three cars there one of which was the park ranger (I guess Maggie gets a leash today!). We took off about 9:30 and began the uphill walk to the falls (this trail one of those uphill both ways types of trail). We made it 3+ miles to the top of the and stopped for lunch. Diane made some flat bread sandwiches topped off with a little Baconaisse Lite – talk about a treat!

By this time we decided both ourselves and Lily had enough and we should probably work our way back down to the car. On the 2.5 hike uphill we only passed only one other hiker and no dogs…on the way back we passed at least 40 people wheezing their way up the trail and at least a dozen dogs (looks like a good time to leave!)

Change of Plans...white water to open water

This weekend I had planned on making my first whitewater boating trip of the year. The plan was to meet up with a friend/fellow rafter on Friday morning and make an early safety run down the Cispus which would then be followed by two more on the Cispus with a much larger group. Though I had the Blast Shelter all packed up, time off of work and was eager to get out on the water Mother Nature a different idea and refused to provide us with a water level adequate to run the river (oh the joys of early season boating!)


20 minutes after making the call to cancel the rafting trip another plan to go sea kayaking quickly came together. "Sea kayaking? You don't sea kayak!" That was pretty much true until I met up with Ben this morning. Next thing you know, thanks to Ben and two of his beautiful handmade kayaks (can you believe he built this boat with pieces of an old wood wardrobe!) , and with a brief lesson on getting myself into the boat I was on the water in no time!
We set off from park next to the Mukilteo ferry terminal, on the calmest flattest water I have ever seen in the sound, and made the crossing over to Whidbey Island. After reaching the island we paused to let the inbound ferry pass by us and dock. Though I was anxious to keep going towards lunch I was informed by Ben, in all his great wisdom, that paddling under the ferry dock is highly frowned upon and also illegal (don't ask how he learned this one!) and it would be in our best interest to take the long way around and stay at least 200' off the stern of the ferry. After rounding the ferry terminal we stoppped at the public beach to stretch our legs and enjoy some lunch.
After 20 minutes or so the still flat water was calling us back so back in the boats we went. We paddled north from the beach out into the channel about a mile or so before turning back towards Mukilteo. The passage between the islands here was pretty interesting. The water and the wind were extrememly calm just as it had been all day and the harbor seals made a dozen or so appearances, apparently they enjoy following kayaks around (due to the "happy wife, happy life" clause in our marraige I didn't want to dunk Diane's new camera in the drink so I did not attemp to get pictures of all these cute little guys while paddling-ironic thing is as soon as I got home she wanted the pictures of them!)
So back top the beach we went once again waiting for a passing ferry before making our landing. All-in-all we estimated 8-9 miles and all of it on near perfect water. Thanks again Ben for the great introduction to sea kayking I can't wait to get back out on the water again! Thanks again Ben!
Stats:
Miles Logged: 8-ish

Sakgit Valley Tulip Festival 04/09

A not so adventurous brief road trip…
So the weather looked pretty wet on Saturday morning so we decided to go walk around in the mud. Saturday was the first day of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival http://www.tulipfestival.org/
So we picked up Grandma and headed north. I didn’t really know where we were actually going so I set the GPS to the most logical place I could think of…..Tulip Town http://www.tuliptown.com/ Once we got to Tulip Town we learned that nowadays it cost $5.00 per person to walk through the muddy field. I must say though the $5.00 did also include access to the gift shops - I thought this was a nice bonus to the $15.00 admission fee. Maybe Nordstrom’s should implement this policy as well…”that will be $5.00 if you would like to come in and consider a purchase” Oh well I guess we did our part to stimulate the local economy.

After leaving Tulip Town we drove a couple miles through the farm country over to Roozengaarde http://www.tulips.com/ Apparently Roozengaarde is attempting to undercut the competition with their $4.00 per person admission fee. We opted out of this one but did take advantage of their free parking and access to the Tulip fields for a few more pictures (mostly of Lily wandering in the daffodils)

After visiting these two tourist traps we decided to call it a day and drove home before the big rain and wind storm that was accurately predicted moved in.

Christmas Cabin 12/08

Chrsitmas ’08 we decided to rent a cabin in the mountains in Plain, WA. We left for the cabin Christmas morning (after opeing Santa’s gifts of course!)

As we hit the road we were in the middle of a beautiful NW snow storm with 8-10 inches already falling by the time we got on the road. We spent the entire drive (about 100 miles) to the cabin in 4wd. Not my quickest run over Stevens Pass but at least there was no traffic! We made it to the cabin with out any issues thanks to the trusty Garmin Street Pilot.

The cabin was beautiful it's parked on the edge of the river and surrounded with a couple feet of snow. In the four days we stayed there we had close to a foot of new snow every night – which was perfect!

Once got situated we entertained ourselves by going sledding, throwing snowballs at Dad and the dog, sitting in the hot tub, eating obsessively and visiting Plain Hardware (www.plainhardware.com/) – that place had some of the best coffee around! Though parking was interesting with all the snowmobiles coming in and out of the parking lot. Friday morning the boys (and Diane) headed out early to Mountain Springs Lodge (www.mtsprings.com/) for a day of snowmobiling with our own guide.

On Saturday we also ran about 40 minutes up the road to the town of Leavenworth to do the Christmas touristy thing – the drive would have been 30 minutes but I had the pleasure of circling back to pulling my dad's new Tahoe out of the fresh snow bank – sorry Dad I couldn’t leave that part out! I will admit it wasn’t really his fault so for “pride’s sake” we’ll blame the snow plow.
Sunday morning we awoke to more fresh snow and worked our way back down the pass back home.

A few other tidbits from this trip:

1. I love owning a 4wd – it made the roadtrip in the snow pretty stress free
2. Always bring more than one drink to the hot tub because you have quite a quandary if you don’t want to get out in the snow to grab another one.
3. This one's important guys....don’t jump a snowmobile with your wife sitting on the back!